3/2/08 John 9:1-7 Here’s Mud in Your Eye (Ephes. 5:8-14)
A man born blind is made to see again by the simple touch of Jesus. This thought and Scriptural story has been made into countless sermons, devotionals, and hymns. “For once he was blind, but now he sees” and immediately we all think of the stirring words of “Amazing Grace.”
But as we read the words, sing the lyrics, and hear the sermons each time this passage is used those of us who are not new to the faith realize that although a physical blindness was healed, Jesus was using the text to talk about a spiritual blindness He saw in the Pharisees…and perhaps the same blindness that exists at times today in all of us.
Spiritual blindness….being unable to see God’s Spirit, being unable to see God comes in a million different ways. There are, of course, those who simply have not heard God’s Word either spoken, or seen it lived through us, and so they are simply ignorant of any knowledge of God. But there are those who know His word, know His presence, have seen His hand at work, and willfully refuse to acknowledge the Spirit. For some this happens on rare occasions, for others it is a purposeful choice each day that they live. Because you see the main reason I think it happens is because to see God, to have your eyes opened, to believe with your heart the words you have read with your eyes, MEANS YOU HAVE TO CHANGE. It means you have to give up a part of yourself, and listen to Christ to the point where your own will, your own opinions, your ways of life have to be changed. And you see, that ain’t easy my friends.
Several years ago, as I was just beginning my serious study for ministry, I became friends with a woman about my own age, and in similar circumstances. She was a single mother of two middle school age boys. She wanted the best she could provide for her children…as we all do. Through several promotions at work she had risen to the level of middle management, and was finally at a place where it seemed her salary would make life a little less stressful. She was able to pay the bills, put a small bit aside for “emergencies”, and even be able to indulge the boys once in a while with the purchase of one of those “necessities” young teens seem to absolutely have to have. But she came to me after a year or two of friendship and said she felt she was in a “cache 22.” Her dilemma was that her job, which paid her the salary to afford to support her family and pay the bills, was also keeping her away for 10 hours a day, with a 6 day work week occasionally. She simply could not see her way out, but she also realized that she wasn’t seeing her boys, and never seemed to have time to enjoy her home -- all of which were made possible by the job that was causing this cache 22 problem. She felt she was in a no win situation, with no vision of how to make her situation any better. Her job had almost become an obsession and her efforts to gain all the things for her family had become the enemy of everything she loved most. She looked at me and said, “I’ve lost sight of everything that matters most!”
Her physical eyesight worked perfectly, but she was blind to allowing God to work within her. It wasn’t that she had lost her faith, or had stopped believing, it was just that she had become so wrapped up in what she believed was the only way to care for her family, that she was blinded to even the POSSIBILITY that God may have another solution.
Truthfully, at the time, although I sympathized and listened to her with compassion, I didn’t have any magic answers for her. But the good news is that one day about a year later she walked into her office, packed a box with her personal things, and quit her job. She quickly found another job, paying much less than her previous one, but one that allowed her to spend every evening and weekend with her boys. Yes, they changed their lifestyle a bit because I could see it got incredibly better… her sons seemed happier, she seemed happier, and her faith took a giant leap forward. Somehow God working through her changed her priorities in life. Expensive clothes, computer games, fast food pick ups, and vacations were replaced with time together, home cooking, and creative camp outs in the back yard.
Every one of us cares a great deal about our families, our community, and our church friends. Every one of us wants the very best we can offer to all of them. But we cannot allow ourselves to get so caught up in the “things” of caring that we become blind to the “reasons” of caring that God wants us to know.
I want to read a passage from Ephesians. Ephesians 5:8-14 has been called the “sister” Scripture to our passage this morning. It speaks of the Light that has come to cure blindness, but that light is not shining ON us, it is working THROUGH us. (Read Ephesians 5:8-14) Now let me read verse 8 again…. “For you were once darkness, but now you ARE light in the Lord.” It doesn’t say you just LIVED in darkness, it says you were darkness, and it doesn’t say that now God has JUST shown you the light, it says you ARE the Light. Not only is Christ shining upon you, you have HIS LIGHT within you …. working through you …. dwelling inside your heart and your head and everywhere within you. Christ has removed the scales from our eyes, and our souls and our hearts, and we now have His very own light living within us.
But here is the truth….sometimes we crowd out God’s Light with our own stuff…. our own baggage, our own thoughts, our own ideas of how best to live. We crowd it out to the point where it becomes that dark glimmer over in the corner of our souls, and it barely is strong enough to shine through on anything or anywhere. THAT IS LIVING IN SPIRITUAL DARKNESS, and you cannot have your blindness taken away until you are again touched by God. And again, and again, and again. Do not think that coming to Christ the one time in your life when you accepted Him is enough, because it is not. That’s what the world and the evil within it will tell you. “Hey, you don’t need anymore…you believe, your soul is safe…don’t spend any more time on that Jesus stuff….you’ve got other things to do!” Rubbish, hogwash, and lies whispered to you by the one who wants to steal you away from the God who has claimed you.
Believing and accepting Christ is incredibly important. Coming to worship to hear his word and be in prayer with the body each week is your battery’s re-charge. But we cannot believe that living in Spiritual unison with God stops there. It does not; it cannot or your souls eyes will be as blind as this beggars.
You must carry Christ with you every moment. You must have His word ready to call up every time the world tries to crowd him out with their temptations and traps. And when you hear the world, and are tempted by what it tells you, when you go through a miserable time of pain or trial and you feel so empty inside you think nothing will ever get better, you have to look to our begger. Because you have to run to the pool of Siloam, where the Spirit of God dwells, and you have to wash off the mud that has been slung in your eyes. You have to not only ask for God’s touch of healing, you have to take it in, allow it to dwell within you, until His Light truly shines out of you to the point where others can see the difference. Every light in this world….whether it is man-made or God made, goes through times of darkness. But the darkness, either when the earth is resting, or the batteries are re-charging is a time of renewal and awareness. Be aware of just how much you need Christ’s Light. Be aware of just how much you WANT Christ’s light. And know that you must return to the Master to be renewed by his loving touch, that will take your blindness away, and renew your sight….the sight that allows you to walk in His spiritual light.
